


Baby Steps

by Star_less



Series: the ‘Baby Powder’ pathway [3]
Category: Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: (yet), Baby Pearl Ritman, Babysitting, Bed-Wetting, Caregiver!Colin, Colin is a good dad to BOTH of his babies, Comfort, Complete, Cuddling & Snuggling, Diapers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infantilism, Insecure Littles, M/M, No Smut, Non-Sexual Age Play, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Post-Canon, grumpy babies, little!Stefan, no omorashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 18:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: Stefan isn't Colin's baby. Well, he isn’t wrong; as much as Stefan wants to be, he certainly isn’t Colin’s baby - and he never will be. There’ll always be someone who pips him to the post in that respect.When the pitter patter of baby feet enters Colin's flat, Stefan begins to feel--just a tad, mind you--insecure about his littlespace. Colin finally decides to take matters into his own hands, although Stefan isn't entirely sure he likes his solution, either. But Colin, well, he's magic... he knows just how to wrap Stefan around his little fingers.“Just because you relax like this. Doesn’t take away from your working life. Y’know, I can slide into Tuckersoft off my face on acid and no one gives a shit because I still work.”





	Baby Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I have returned, and I bear NSAP shaped gifts. This one took me a little while because I just wasn't happy with how I wrote it, nothing seemed to run smoothly. This one's had a total facelift, mind you!
> 
> Please note that when I say Baby Pearl I quite literally mean seven month old baby Pearl. Stefan is the only 'little' in this story.. heh! :D  
> This story contains mentions of diapers and wetting (although no wetting occurs aside from tags) -- if that isn't your thing, float on by. If it IS your thing, wait patiently :-)
> 
> Enjoy. Or not! Hit backspace. Choose a different path.

Stefan isn’t Colin’s baby.

Perhaps that’s a rather blunt way of observing things, but it isn’t wrong; as much as Stefan wants to be, he certainly isn’t Colin’s baby - and he never will be. There’ll always be someone who pips him to the post in that respect.  
Not that he minds, you know— not that he’s bitter or angry or anything because at the end of the day she’s only seven months old and she doesn’t mean to take him away, she’s just a baby—but... sometimes Stefan wishes he could be entirely Colin's. He hates himself for thinking it, feeling it, _wanting_ it. It makes those times in the twilight hours when he wakes up soaked through and crying out of sheer humiliation all the more sickening because Colin is always there and will always help him, even when Pearl’s had him coasting on three hours of sleep. Sometimes Stefan wakes up and his heart sinks when he feels the smelly wetness dragging across the bedsheets. _Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry you absolute fucking dumbass_ , he yells at himself, coaches himself over and over. _Get up, stop fucking crying, get changed_ , is his mantra (a useless one, because he doesn’t fucking move) — _Colin is too tired to help you, he already has to help his real baby. His real baby can’t get herself changed. You can._  
It rarely works; most of the time Stefan lays there and cries until he can’t breathe and he has tears running from his eyes right into his ears and snot running down his nose and over his lips because as much as he tries to get up, the thought of changing an entire bed plus himself is too... overwhelming.

Tonight was one of those times. The second Stefan is yanked screaming from sleep by some sort of demon, wetness seeps through his pyjama bottoms. Usually, he had at least three or four seconds of sleepy silence before he can process that he’s pissed himself — which usually means a solid five seconds before he bursts into tears.  
Tonight of all nights he processed that _'fuck, not again!'_ much much quicker; and he suspected that it had something to do with the fact that Pearl was fast asleep with her Daddy in the living room and Stefan was alone in Colin’s big bed all by himself.  
( _‘You don’t mind, do you? I’m not too far away if you need me.’_ \- What is Stefan meant to respond to that, anyway? No? Leave your seven month old daughter, Colin, look after me instead? Bullshit.)  
Nevertheless, Stefan is alone; Stefan is alone in Colin’s bed and he’d just pissed in it. Not again. Why tonight, of all nights? The familiarly ugly lump rose in his throat and he moaned around it in the darkness, wetness prickling at the corners of his eyes. His face goes all hot and the tears slip down his cheeks. But he doesn’t move. Usually, Colin wakes up when he catches the sudden snivelling and Stefan is so, so used to Colin waking him and guiding him through getting changed that he feels like he can do nothing but lie there - and so he does. He lies there, nose buried into Rabbit’s woolly cheek, breathing in Rabbit’s smoky, perfume-y smell that lulls him off to sleep once more, praying childishly that Colin will somehow find him - because he's magic like that.  
Stefan slept comfortably for about twenty five minutes before his thighs, cold and itchy and stinging with wetness, wake him once more. By this point... Stefan really has no choice, that much is apparent. Whimpering pitifully to himself Stefan clambered out of bed whilst gathering up the sodden sheets and a fresh pair of pyjamas just as he’s seen Colin do. He goes into some form of autopilot for this and only comes-to again when he’s stumbled out to the hallway trailing his damp sheets behind him.  
The... the washing machine is in the kitchen. The kitchen is joined to the living room. Stefan stands in the doorway and from where he stands he can see Colin sprawled out on the tiny sofa. (One hand is dangled off of the sofa, close to where Pearl is lying in a travel cot nearby. She too is fast asleep.)

If... if he does this, he has to race against time before Pearl - or Colin - wake up.

Stefan darted to the washing machine in the kitchen on the lightest footsteps he could manage. He filled the washer; not that he can remember how to work a washing machine, mind you since Colin always does that. Regardless, Stefan has no time to be a child. Washing machine loaded, Stefan pressed the big red button on the front with anticipation.

...Nothing happened.

 _Why was nothing happening?!_  
At that moment Stefan grew overcome (as he usually was when things didn’t go his way) with the urge to have a temper tantrum - something that was becoming shamefully regular since Colin had started this baby bullshit.  
“W- what...?” He hissed to himself, mentally running through the steps.  
The clothes were in.  
The button was pressed.  
“Work!” He pressed the button again.  
Rapidly.  
Five or six times.  
It yields nothing.  
Stefan’s second set of instincts is to call for Colin and have a bit of a cry... but crying means waking Pearl and- and he doesn’t want to wake Pearl. His eyes darted around the room, desperate, trying to find a solution. M- maybe he can... wash his clothes in the sink? Or— wait. His eyes landed on the brightly coloured box under the sink.  
_Washing powder._  
Washing powder, you fucking dumbass.  
Stefan dragged over the tub of washing powder, grunting softly (it’s heavier than he remembered) and grunted louder still upon lifting the box to the tray of the machine — agonisingly slowly since his entire body trembled with the effort of even lifting the box. A small snowfall of powder collected in the tray and so, well, Stefan let his guard down a little bit. Good enough. This... is easy -peasy. See? He can still look after himself, he doesn’t need Colin, he can—

 _Whoomf._  
Whoomf is the noise that the bottom of the box made as it burst open—almost in slow motion—and sent a mound of soap powder all over Stefan’s pyjamas, his lap, and every line in between the tiles of the floor. It’s oddly noisy for a box of washing powder (although Stefan supposes it would be, considering that’s exactly how his luck seems to run.)  
...Noisier still, however, was the sound of Pearl, who started to stir and grunt and squeal in that uncomfortable way only babies could master. Stefan’s eyes widened. “No!” He hissed tearfully, running over to the little girl in three long strides and dancing desperately in front of her cot in an attempt to get her to sssshhh. Colin can’t wake up! “No! Ssh baby— shh, baby please shh—!” he begged, eyes crinkling with upset. Pearl kept crying, so Stefan grew helpless... and he rather felt like he needed a bit of a cry too. “S- shh baby,” he pleaded once more. His voice was small and wobbly. 

“Stefan?” It’s Pearl’s cries that wake Colin initially, but Stefan’s voice sent him from the fringes of 'Pearl’s-just-whinging-you-can-sleep' into complete explosive wakefulness. He sat and squinted into the darkness, praying that Stefan isn’t fussing with the baby. “What are you doing with Pearl?”

Reaching out blindly Colin manages to throw on the closest lamp, which spits out dull orange light. Not enough to illuminate the whole room, but enough to illuminate his baby. _No. Both_ of his babies.

“I- I’m not—“ Stefan’s breath caught in his throat and he choked on it, whimpering. “I’m not... she was...”

Colin was silent. Partially dumbfounded, because... is that washing powder? Yes, that’s Stefan, and he’s covered in washing powder. Christ, it’s everywhere - all over his pyjamas, freckled on his cheeks, dusted in his hair. Stefan could feel Colin drinking him in. He positively scorched under his gaze, eyes burning in the corners. 

“Wet.” He finished at last, mumbling lamely around the un-dissolving lump in his throat because... really, there’s nothing else to say, no other way to explain things. His chin wobbles; his hands are in fists at his sides - bunching and unbunching with his desperation to reach toward Colin and be held in the way Pearl is. 

“Righto.” Colin nodded calmly, rubbing one eye and sitting up as though nothing was the matter which does wonders to squash the anxiety bubbling in Stefan’s chest. Maybe nothing was the matter. Maybe Colin didn’t mind. Maybe everything was going to be okay.  
Colin stands, peers at his daughter, then his full focus is on Stefan; he ushers Stefan toward the bathroom with a soft, _‘you’ve got fresh pyjamas?’_.  
Course, he doesn’t care. He suspected this was his own fault in the first place. What good would yelling do, anyway? It wasn't as if Stefan had a choice in this. That'd be like shouting at Pearl for him having to change her nappies.  
Mmm. Colin supposed the same sort of principles fitted Stefan although, at the (physical) age of nineteen there were at least some solutions to his problems. He could change his own nappies, for one, and was capable of articulating when he was feeling uncomfortable rather than just crying. That’s useful.  
On second thoughts... perhaps... perhaps that isn’t a bad idea. That was, after all, his reason for starting this... _thing_... in the first place. 

“Finished,” Stefan whispered.

“Hm?” Colin mumbled, yanked away from his thoughts. Stefan was wearing the aforementioned fresh set of pyjamas. They had Thunderbirds on them, although the shirt isn’t buttoned up. Stefan finds fiddly buttons a little difficult.  
“Ah. Almost!” Colin faintly praised. He goes through Stefan’s bedtime routine with little trouble afterwards, although his mind is working away slowly. 

...By the time Colin has escaped back to his bed on the settee, his mind is made up entirely. “Looks like you’re going to spend a little time with uncle Stefan tomorrow,” he whispers to Pearl, touching his little finger to her outstretched dimpled fist. As he finished speaking he reconsidered— but... Stefan should be fine, right? It’s hardly as if he’d be gone for hours and... he’s not sure Stefan could cope with being left alone just yet.  
Oh well. That was a battle for tomorrow, was Colin’s decider. His second battle, of course, is wrestling Stefan into the goddamned things.  
At least Pearl didn’t put up too much of a fight.  
~

“You don’t mind staying with her for an hour or so, right?”

“No,” Stefan announced to Colin in his best ‘I am nineteen and I am not scared’ sort of voice. “I- I can look after her. I’m not a kid,” _even if I have been acting like one_ “I’m capable. I would have said no if I didn’t feel like I could.”  
He’s insistent. Maybe being insistent and confident will fight through the ugly band of sickness in his belly at the thought of being alone with this... unpredictable little gremlin. 

“She’s been fed, changed. Will probably start grizzling for a sleep at some point. Kitty’s picking her up, but I’ll be back by then.” Colin tells him, grabbing his wallet, lighter and cigs. “Good luck. See you, Princess.” He grinned... and kissed the baby. 

Stefan was silent. Blushing. He almost thought Colin meant... well, Colin is on his way out now, so he can’t have meant him. “See you.” He whispered, waving. Without realising, he has this anguished, rabbit-in-headlights sort of look about him; even though he’s trying not to. Colin teetered in the doorway. Oh, Stefan.  
Rolling his eyes playfully he repeated, slightly more mocking, “See you, Princess.” before planting a peck on Stefan’s cheek.

Oh... perhaps Colin did mean him. Stefan stumbles his way through a final goodbye, waving, before the front door slams and... it is quiet and it is just Stefan and Pearl.

“Hello...” Stefan begins awkwardly, voice coming out as though he’s talking to the Prime Minister rather than his boyfriend’s seven month old baby— _get a grip, Stefan, for fuck’s sake_ —before he crept forward and lifted Pearl from the cot. Whoa. She’s heavier than he realised. Slowly, he held her close, gave her an awkward little smile.  
In return she smiled at him all teeth and gums and dribble. It’s... reassuring. “Yeah, hello!” He repeated with a giggle, voice suddenly light with relaxation. “You’re stuck with me today, baby." He bounced her; she giggles again; he takes that as an affirmation. "Yes you are.”

Pearl gurgled; a gurgle that turns into another giggle.  
Stefan begins to think that maybe, just maybe, things are going to be okay.  
~

“D’you need a wee?” are Colin’s first words when he steps back into his flat and finds Stefan alone - Pearl collected - sat on the settee with his nose in a book. Huh. That’s a sentence Colin never pictured himself saying to anybody, let alone his boyfriend.  
Stefan is positive that this is the first time Colin has ever said something as embarrassing as that to him during their relationship—okay, perhaps it comes in at a close second with, _‘you are my little star’_ —and absolutely scorches a deep, gorgeous peach all the way to the tips of his ears. 

“Uh...”  
Stefan set the book aside. Come to think of it, he hadn’t... _gone_ since this morning; the pressure of having to look after Pearl and steady himself enough to stay out of little space had rearranged his priorities somewhat with draining the tank coming in close to the bottom of the list — although, with Colin’s first words being what they are, Stefan’s not sure he wants to admit that. His body betrayed him first by having him fidget once, “No, not really.” falls from his mouth and then...  
Christ, he can feel Colin drinking in even the slightest of his movements. It’s enough to make him grimace in realisation.

“Right,” Colin responded slowly, squinting at Stefan. Oh - it’s bullshit, his boy is feeding him total and utter bullshit - but if that’s the path he wants to go down then... who is Colin to stop him? His tone of voice is enough to let Stefan know that he knows, anyway, so if Stefan wanted to stew on it, Colin is more than happy to let him do so. “Well. I got you a gift.” Colin shrugged off the carrier bag he was holding, let it roll toward Stefan. He relishes the fact that Stefan can’t hold back any interest and rocks forward with bright, wet eyes. 

“What is it?” Stefan batted the bag with interest. The little boy that’s knotted down somewhere deep within the depths of his brain begins to re-emerge at long last. Oh, he does so hope it’s a new toy. He hasn’t got very many toys; Dad has always told him that at 19 he is much too grown up for toys and that everybody would laugh at him if he still had toys. But... but Colin has proven that not everybody is going to laugh at him - Colin wouldn't laugh at him - so... perhaps he has new toys. Admittedly, he would quite like some dinosaurs or—or—well, the building blocks that Pearl had this morning would be nice too. Mmm. Perhaps it’s not toys — perhaps it’s a new computer game?! Oh, Stefan would love a new computer game. It’s not Colin’s; Colin is still working on his latest release - but what if it’s Calysta?! Calysta is this cool new release from Atari. Colin knows how much he wants it and- and, well, he’s made him promise to be a really, really good boy and maybe then he can get it for Christmas but being good is really hard and Christmas is such a long time away and sometimes Stefan isn’t sure what makes him a good boy and what makes him a bad boy. Excitement fizzling away in him like an aspirin in a glass of water Stefan finally tips the bag forward and its contents fall onto the floor with a soft whomp.  
There, staring back at Stefan, are...

Are...

“Nappies?” 

_No. No... no, he can’t— he can’t have done this, he won’t—there was no way he was going to p--_  
“Wh- what did you get those for?”  
Stefan’s voice betrayed him entirely, came out all high pitched and tearful despite him trying so desperately hard to wrench every last shred of his adult self—his dignity—to the forefront of his mind. At the same time, his eyes welled with tears.  
Fuck, even looking at the goddamned package made something sour like bile rise up in his throat and then, then his throat went all tight and tearful too and when he breathes he chokes on sobs and usually he’d go to Colin if he needed comfort but Colin just wants to turn him into some sort of circus _freak_. And yet... it scratches that itch deep in his brain -- scratches it and whispers, _look, he really wants you too Stefan... he wants you as much as he does his baby Pearl_ so... so he's sat there with this awful sour smoothie of elation and utter fucking shame in his stomach.

“You know what for.” Colin responded, voice soft. Again, there’s no judgment in it; it’s as though he doesn’t really care, as though it’s not even on his radar of ‘things to be judgmental about’, but somehow this doesn’t make Stefan feel any better. Stefan can’t—won’t—meet Colin’s gaze; curls in tightly as a last ditch attempt to force back the tears. If Colin thinks he’s a freak, the last thing he wants is to bawl like a baby... although, for Colin, the sudden quivering of Stefan’s shoulders is a giveaway. “You’re okay, Stefan. This is just a nighttime thing.”  
~

_This is just a nighttime thing._

Staring at his reflection in the blurry mirror haphazardly propped up against the back of Colin’s bedroom door, Stefan couldn’t quite pinpoint if it was the mirror that was blurry or if his own eyes had misted with tears. Yet nothing could conceal the undeniable fact that, well... here he was. Stefan Butler, Tuckersoft’s second best game designer, stood in his boyfriend’s bedroom in nothing but a pair of socks, a Pac-Man t-shirt... and a thin disposable nappy that crinkled even if he made the lightest step. 

“I- I don’t like it. I can’t... Colin, lemme take it off.” Stefan whimpered around the sickly stone in his throat, trying his damn hardest to sound as grown up as possible. Maybe if he did, Colin would take pity on him, realise he wasn’t as small as Colin liked to say he was. Even if... even if a part of him liked the little crinkles, and the way it kinda tucked and hugged better than his boxers did, and the fact that Colin liberally doused him in baby powder the same he did Pearl so Stefan even smelled like Colin's little baby... he couldn't. 

“Well, yeah. You know what I think about Pac-Man, Stefan...” Colin quipped. Stefan huffed, unamused, nothing coming from his mouth other than a whimper that sounded much too pouty for his liking. He reached out blindly through the sheet of tears in his eyes to give Colin a feeble little shove. Fortunately, all it does is make Colin stumble slightly and when he bounces back he’s chuckling. Ballsy behaviour coming from someone who currently looked like a huge baby.

“You’re okay, Stefan. Look at you.” Colin ruffled his hair soothingly. As pissed off as Stefan is, all of his muscles relax - right to the tips of his fingers, and so Colin takes this as the go ahead to continue. “You could wear a nappy, and you’re still _the_ Stefan Butler. 

He grabbed Stefan’s dummy, guided it into Stefan’s mouth with an encouraging smile. (...Stefan fell to suckling much sooner than he’d like to admit.) “Have a dummy. Still Stefan Butler.”

He rolled up Stefan’s shirt and guided it off of his head, Stefan instinctively lifting his arms. “Questionable taste in shirts. Still Stefan Butler.”

He moved to the kitchen and made up for Stefan a cup of warm milk (they were not quite at the ‘being fed a bottle’ stage yet but Stefan was perfectly willing to accept that warm milk was incredibly soothing) — and then encouraged him to sip it down quickly while he watched television. “Warm milk and telly. Still Stefan Butler.”

He dressed Stefan in his pyjamas and plopped Rabbit into his arms. “Pyjamas and a dolly. Still Stefan Butler.” He shrugged decisively, unfazed, pressed a kiss to Stefan’s temple and squeezed his free hand. “Just because you relax like this. Doesn’t take away from your working life. Y’know, I can slide into Tuckersoft off my face on acid and no one gives a shit because I still work,” Stefan’s sure that that’s a bit of a lie, although he was hurtling toward littlespace so fast that Colin could be whispering a lullaby to him for all he knew.  
“You could dress up as a performing monkey for all I care, Stefan. You’re still stuck with me. Even when I have Pearl, when you think I'm busy, you're stuck with me. You always will be. Sorry.”

Just like that, Stefan was putty in Colin’s hands, floating somewhere in littlespace. That was... it. All he needed. He whimpered softly, turned to face Colin with a trembling lip. “Promise?”  
Colin patted his cheek lovingly. Now that he was getting a closer look, Stefan had that familiarly milky, sleepy look in his eyes... which only meant one thing. “Promise. Come on, you.” He took Stefan’s free hand, held on, ushered him sternly toward the bedroom once more. “Pearl tired you out. Let’s have some sleep.”  
The pair crumpled down almost in unison, instinctively side by side - Stefan a little more hesitant but pulled down anyway. Beneath his Thunderbirds pyjamas, the protective garment crinkled with just the slightest movement. Rather than pull him deeper and deeper into littlespace, it seemed to pull him out - with his little side the blissed out antidote to his all-too-aware big self, for whom this entire situation was fucking shameful.  
The teasing little noise drove redness to his cheeks and glossy tears to his eyes but the most Stefan did, as Colin stroked his hair, was whimper babyishly, “Still don’t like it.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Colin promised with a voice that was sincere yet loaded with sleepiness. “Just like the dummy.” He idly flicked the shield, making the little plastic handle clack softly. Stefan complained, grumped and griped so much about the soother, but it had reached beloved status now - on a par with Rabbit.  
He stroked Stefan’s hair and gently mumbled nonsense until he was sure the young boy had fully succumbed to sleep; all the while he fought the heaviness of his own eyes, of course, because hey - it wasn’t as if this was only relaxing for the boy with a dummy in his mouth. 

He could only hope, in his last moment before he too collapsed into sleep — that the protection worked. They had - by Colin's estimations - at least three weeks of sleep to catch up on.  
Plus, he’d just filled Stefan up with warm milk and sent him to bed in an attempt to test out the nappies' capacity, like... some weird hot water bottle...

Eh. Whatever - what was the point in teasing fate? That was a bridge he'd cross when he had to.

(Fortunately, judging by next morning's results (one soaked Stefan; soaked but bursting at the seams) it was a bridge that went uncrossed.)

**Author's Note:**

> Can we please quietly ignore the fact that I am not even sure they had disposable diapers in the 80s and that Colin may have needed to go to specialist people to get stuff like that back then? Cause, like, realism shmealism, people. 
> 
> I had a whole segment about Stefan babysitting Pearl which I threw out because it just made this whole thing so long and clunky. I am so tempted to rewrite it and throw it up here on AO3 too. 
> 
> Please comment and kudos if you enjoyed this; they keep me enthused to continue writing what I love and I appreciate every single comment and kudos I get, even if I do struggle to reply to them promptly!
> 
> I have a **GASP** NON AGEPLAY Colin & Stefan fic going up at some point too. Look out for it. 
> 
> (Can I let you in on a secret? Most of the time I imagine a tiny little Stefan sat next to me as I carry out my writing process, going through.. whatever I put him through. If it flows, it stays. If not, it goes. He likes kudos and comments too, although I hear he's most partial to Frosties (milky, with extra sugar please) )
> 
> xx


End file.
